This week I’d like you to have a look at some work by this Wednesday’s guest speaker, Hunter Homistek. Hunter is a WVU alumnus (and originator of one of this class’ best blog names). He’s currently content marketing coordinator for FloSports, but he got there via a string of blogging and freelancing opportunities (and hard work), mainly writing about the world of Mixed Martial Arts. As a blogger in this class, Hunter wrote about MMA because that’s what he cared about, and he parlayed that interest into actual employment, writing for blogs like Bleacher Report and MMAfighting.com.

Here’s a list of links to his work. Skim, find some things of interest, and talk about what you see.

Creative and Editorial work

Scan through this work and get a sense for Hunter and the kind of skills he needs to do his variety of jobs. Have questions, both about the links and about what he does and how he got there. You don’t need to be an MMA fan – the takeaway here is how you can pursue an interest to become a voice on the subject.

Since Hunter isn’t coming until Wednesday (and since you’re coming off a turkey-laden break), I’m extending this deadline. You have until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 29 to post your comments as a response to this post. Make sure to connect what you read with the work we’ve done this semester. What skills do you see at work? How could you follow Hunter’s lead? What does he need to tell you? I’m asking him to read your comments as well, so let him know what you want to know!

In this week before Thanksgiving Break, we’ll turn our better-educated eyes toward … each other. For this week, you’re reading your classmates’ group blogs. The assignments, divided by group, are as follows:

This week’s readings are mostly viewings. To start, though, let’s have a moment of silence for Vine. The six-second-video-sharing app is owned by Twitter, which in October announced plans to shut it down. In a nutshell, Vine could be used to create and share a six-second clip of anything … just how useful can that be?

There are several possible reasons. For one, Twitter has been scaling back in the hopes of turning a profit. For another, livestreaming apps have horned in on its territory. Periscope (also owned by Twitter) is popular, defeated competition like Meerkat, and Facebook Live is perhaps even more popular; one mark in Facebook Live’s favor is the use of the social networking giant’s ability to note popularity of specific points in a stream through viewer likes and reactions. This is our current social media world: Ideas live, they die, they live again (but under new management).

So how do you livestream? The Providence Journal has some suggestions, as does HuffPost. Is livestreaming something you’d try? How can we apply this to the practice of journalism, and what are its problems?

Post your responses in a comment to this post by 11:59 p.m., Sunday, November 6.